Fed by global hunger for smartphones and tablets, illegal tin mining has led to environmental destruction and death for Indonesian island of Bangka.

Miners suck the tin out of the seabed with the help of bamboo sticks a few hundred metres off the Indonesian coast at Bangka Island. They earn about $15 (US) per day, a much more profitable activity than fishing. But every year, about 60 workers die by getting buried in sand.

“When 40 per cent of the population is involved in mining, how can you say that tin is illegal?”

independent smelter

who asks to remain anonymous

BANGKA ISLAND, INDONESIA—At 8 a.m. in Rebo, a fishing village on the eastern coast of this Indonesian island, dozens of young men gather at the small harbour, equipped only with a jerry can of fuel and a meagre lunch.

They gaze silently at the horizon, patiently waiting for the fishing boat that will ferry them to the wooden pontoons that float a few hundred metres offshore. Although the floating platforms look like a fishing stage, something much more precious lies at the bottom of the sea here: one of the most valuable metals in the world.

Slightly larger than Cyprus, Bangka is an island of 1 million people. But it provides around 30 per cent of the world’s tin, used in car components, cans and plates. Fifty-two per cent is used as solder, holding together the circuit boards and components of smartphones, laptops and tablets. As smartphones sales surpassed 1 billion units last year, and tablets 184 million units, the price of tin has skyrocketed, climbing from $5 (U.S.) a kilogram to more than $23 (U.S.) in the past 10 years.

Meanwhile, tin has rapidly turned this former island paradise into a hell on Earth.

Bangka has become a gigantic mining site, offshore and onshore. Its once pristine tropical forests are now scarred with thousands of moonlike craters contaminated with acidic water and heavy metals, the result of 13 years of indiscriminate mining.

After the industry was deregulated in 2001, the market was swamped with tens of thousands of miners. According to the provincial government’s department of mining and energy, 30 per cent to 40 per cent of Bangka’s population is active in mining. The vast majority work in illegal areas stretching as far as the eye can see, often into the middle of protected forests. Child labour is rife, as are injuries and fatal accidents.

Once they reach the platforms, the young men begin working feverishly. Three dive into the muddy water, which contrasts with the turquoise of the surrounding sea. Divers suck tin ore from the seabed through a plastic tube connected to a diesel-propelled pump. At the same time, others operate suction pipes directly from the decks, constantly pounding the seabed with bamboo sticks to stir the sand and expose the ore.

The heavier tin ore is deposited on the bottom of the wooden platform, while the sand is washed back into the sea. Each pontoon can collect 15 kilograms of ore. Depending on the global market, each miner can earn around $15 (U.S.) per day, double the average pay of a farm labourer.

But this bonanza comes with a great price.

“Divers are the ones who risk most,” says 31-year-old Huwei Liong, struggling to make himself heard above the deafening bangs of the pumps.

After 30 minutes, the men, mostly thin but extremely fit, some as young as 14, are soaked in sweat, sea water and mud. The seabed pits from which the ore is drawn are deep and can easily collapse, burying the divers under metres of sand.

Now a pontoon owner, Liong survived several almost-fatal landslides when he was a diver. “You get buried suddenly, there’s no way to prevent it,” he says. “Sometimes it takes 30 minutes or one hour for your mates to bring you to the surface.”

Illegal miners often play a dangerous seek-and-hide game with the police.

Malasari Amirudin, 33, and her daughter Novi Akher, 15, have been out of work since police raided the onshore mine where they worked.

“We have no choice but to wait until a new one will open. It generally doesn’t take more than one week,” says Amirudin, who has been mining tin since she was 10.

Like most miners, Amirudin and her daughter have no idea what tin is used for. They scream when they see an iPhone. “Those things are expensive. We should definitely ask for more money,” Amirudin jokes.

The tropical forest is quickly giving way to new mining pits, while many of the depleted ones are abandoned. Although licensed mining companies are required to clean up the land they mined, a drive across the island exposes enormous swaths that have been abandoned without any reclamation. The state-run tin company, PT Timah, claims many unaffiliated miners return to mines the company has reclaimed and continue to work.

While this is partly true, Dr. Ismed Inonu, vice rector of Bangka Belitung University and an expert on environment and agriculture, blames the companies as well.

“One of the causes of environmental destruction here is the postponement of reclamation,” he says. “It should have been done by the companies, and the government should have given sanctions (to the ones who don’t comply).”

The environmental condition of the sea is worse. Hundreds of makeshift pontoons operate alongside a fleet of 52 dredgers and sucking ships from PT Timah and other companies drawing tin ore from the seabed and throwing the sand tailings, or residual waste, back into the water.

According to a recent study by the University of Bangka Belitung, sand tailings have killed between 30 per cent and 60 per cent of the coral reef, forcing fish to move farther from the coast and harming the tourism industry. Although mining companies are focusing more and more on offshore mining, the local government has no provision for any sea reclamation.

Local fishermen suffer the most.

“Fourteen years ago, I could fish within four miles (6.5 kilometres) from the coast,” says Tsung Ling Xiao, 41. “Now, I have to throw my nets as far as 17 miles (27 kilometres).”

Dutch colonialists first exploited Bangkanese tin in the 17th century, using Chinese workers to extract it. Since then, tin mining has provided a livelihood for thousands of families and attracted investment in shops, hotels and restaurants, but it has also destroyed much of the island.

“When 40 per cent of the population is involved in mining, how can you say that tin is illegal?” says an independent smelter, who asks to remain anonymous.

In 2012, the environmental group Friends of the Earth (.pdf) launched a campaign asking top mobile phone manufacturers to take responsibility for Bangka’s environment and it spearheaded a campaign to improve transparency in the tin supply chain. In 2013, six companies — BlackBerry, LG Electronics, Motorola Mobility, Nokia, Samsung and Sony Mobile — acknowledged they used Bangkanese tin. In February 2014, Apple initiated a working group to assess tin production on the island.

Local authorities admit that illegal mining will be difficult to eradicate.

“It will be impossible to stop it in the short period, we have to be realistic,” says Yan Megawandi, head of the planning department in the provincial government. “We first need to create employment for the people, so that they can feed their children.” His meagre budget makes it difficult to address the environmental damage.

Inonu issues an even gloomier warning. “The impact of the destruction we are seeing now will last decades, if not centuries,” he predicts. “Some species of fauna are already disappearing, as well as some high quality wood forest plants. If action is not taken now, something really bad will happen to this land.”